The invention relates to a sustainer for a vehicle roof rail, and more particularly to a sustainer that is self-adjusting and does not require protrusions or bumps to be formed in the roof surface of a vehicle to assist in holding the sustainer stationary during assembly to the vehicle roof.
A generic sustainer is shown in EP0780267A1. This known sustainer features a fastening bolt with a first threaded portion and a second threaded portion running in the opposite direction to the first. A support part, which separates the threaded portions from each other, is located between the threaded portions.
During assembly, the support part comes to rest on a support sheet upon which rib-shaped bumps have been molded. The bumps are supposed to prevent the fastening bolt from rotating further than desired while a nut is being screwed on.
A disadvantage of this known sustainer is the unavoidably necessary manipulation on the vehicle""s roof (i.e., on the roof panel or on the floor of a roof channel) for the purpose of molding rib-shaped bumps. It has been shown in practice that automobile manufacturers strongly resist forming such bumps or protrusions during manufacture of the vehicle.
It is the objective of the present invention to provide automatic compensation for tolerances between a sustainer and a roof, or a roof channel, without the need for additional steps of forming rib-shaped bumps on the roof to assist in securing the sustainer to the roof.
The sustainer of the present invention comprises a fastening bolt assembly having a fastening bolt. The fastening bolt has a head portion and a shank. The head portion includes a first threaded portion and the shank portion includes a second threaded portion. The second threaded portion is formed with its threads opposite to the first threaded portion. The head portion also includes a through bore within which is disposed a spring positioned inbetween opposing blocking elements. A pair of channels are also formed in the head portion which each receive moveable pins. The head portion is screwed into a journal piece of a roof rail prior to fastening of the roof rail to the vehicle roof.
During assembly, when a nut is tightened onto the shank of the fastening bolt, this causes the head portion to be unscrewed from the journal piece. As this occurs, the pins move into positions whereby the blocking elements are able to extend through openings formed in each of the pins, and into integrally formed structure on the journal piece. This prevents further rotation of the fastening bolt as the nut is tightened further onto the shank.
The present invention accomplishes self-adjustment of the sustainer and prevents unwanted rotation of the fastening bolt relative to the journal without requiring special surface projections to be formed on the vehicle roof.